1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tie-down device and, particularly, to an articulated pivoting tie-down device for binding cargo to a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
A common requirement of our society is the need to transport various types of cargo from one place to another. Many of the existing vehicles available for transporting such cargo are of the flat bed type. Many times, however, such cargo is very massive and tends to shift while being transported. Although various types of tie-down straps and cables have been developed to bind such cargo to the flat beds, unfortunately the devices developed to connect the tie-down straps and cables to the vehicle have met only limited success. Such non-articulated and non-pivoting devices can generally non-destructively withstand only forces applied in direct tension, but are not generally economically designed to non-destructively withstand the substantial stresses created by eccentrically applied loads which are generated by crisscross binding, as the cargo shifts while being transported, and by the flexing of the vehicle. In some cases such resultant forces may reach magnitudes in the range of tens of thousands of pounds, or greater.
An alternative would be to use specially designed vehicles which cradle the cargo to prevent shifting thereof. This alternative, however, would generally not be practical economically as the specially designed vehicles would generally have limited application for other usages. What is needed is a tie-down device which can be used to secure massive cargo to a flat bed vehicle and which is economically capable of non-destructively adapting to the substantial stresses created by the resultant horizontal, vertical, and lateral force vectors caused by the loads created by criss-cross binding and the dynamic loading induced by the tendency of cargo to shift and the flexing of the vehicle while in motion.